Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Imposter Christianity vs (DEI) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, (CRT) Critical Race Theory, & Intersectionality




Imposter Christianity vs (DEI) Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion, (CRT) Critical Race 
Theory, & Intersectionality

by R.E. Slater
July 26, 2022

DEI, CRT, and Intersectionality are explained here in the following three articles in non-politically polarizing language (unlike my own charged commentary, with apologies). I think you will find those articles helpful to read.

My Problem with Christian Denial & Obfustication

I've attended several universities in life. A very large, internationally ranked university for science, mathematics, engineering, IT, and general Humanities, Ancient History and Language studies. Then a private, conservative evangelical bible college for Psychology and Bible. Then a 3 year (it took me 4 years) M.Div. degree from the same school's Theological Seminary. And finally, 30/60 credits towards an MBA at a local state university.

This morning I became aware of my bible college (now a university in educational statue but still acting as a conservative private Christian college with its head planted firmly into the sand) firing 2/3's of its staff (42 persons) in order to clean house and wrap itself into the conspiritorial fellowships of neo-radical rightwing Republicanism and thereby actively decentering itself from such social issues as Christian humanities, humanism, social justice, and the ever evolving practices of civil, polyplural, multiethnic democracies. Gone are the olden days of penitance and service; in their place have come days of profanity and violence.

In so doing, my college, like so many other conforming Christian colleges, are going backwards in time against their historical progress forwards; backwards to their former selves to once again embrace varying forms of erring anti-abolition and anti-suffrage leagues known more commonly today as White Christian Nationalism. This then would be sympathetic forms of Christian white Supremacy seeking white cultural authoritarianism mixed with church-based theocracies of religiously interpreted dominionism over personal liberties:

"[White] Christian nationalism is Christian-affiliated religious nationalism seeks [religious dominion over] rightful civil liberties. Christian nationalists primarily focus on internal politics, such as passing laws that reflect their view of Christianity and its role in political and social life. In countries with a state Church, Christian nationalists, in seeking to preserve the status of a Christian state, uphold an antidisestablishmentarian position.

"Christian nationalists support the presence of Christian symbols and statuary in the public square, as well as state patronage for the display of religion, such as school prayer and the exhibition of nativity scenes during Christmastide or the Christian Cross on Good Friday.

"Christian nationalists draw support from the broader Christian right." - Wikipedia

I don't know about you but when's the last time you have experienced a fully healthy, fully blended church, seeking full congregational participation in polity, policy, and doctrine? Nope, me neither though I've been close to it several times. Just as perfect churches don't exist so I wouldn't recommend building a nation upon the church's example. It's not how I would envision a healthy, growing, Republican-based Liberal Democracy (see Wikipedia here for explanation) embracing social equality and justice for all - rather than for some if having the right color or having been assimilated into the right culture.

Using Opaque Christian Language Meaning Something Else

I next dived further into my Christian college's records along with it's contemporary history to discover it's leadership is willfully misusing Christian language. Thereby telling itself - and any who care to listen, such as its paying constituents - that Jesus is who they follow and worship. That diversity, equality, and inclusion is what they are all about. But by removing it's bible staff, faculty, and watching the outflow of non-whites out of its educational institution, it tells a different story. One that isn't as they say it is.

When reading through all these recent events of the college's newest statements, intentions, and actions, I noticed immediately the difficulty the institution was having with words they purposely were misconstruing so they could promote their own dogmatic church policies.

Words like toleration, social justice, and church missional work have become words playing into the conservative evangelical's fears of so called "liberalism" rather than a more proper fear of their own Christian associations, councils, synods, and fellowships' pell-mell flight into white Christian nationalism (WCN, aka "neo-rightwing republicanism").

Factually, flights into Christian revisional history cannot possibly begin to build upon evangelicalism's one time progress made over the years (1980s?) towards accepting, adapting, and learning to work within a multiracial democracy; nor, promote any decent global platform for Christian ministry in general.

Toleration is a Big Word with a Tricky Meaning for WCN's

Next I came to the authored books my college deemed important to the new president's resume and their hiring of him as I quickly came to the conclusion:

"Toleration" when used by WCNs can become an insipid term in the hands of disaffecting people or their dissenting groups. Such a word is intended as a derisional term to demean the other in everyway possible.
Importantly, as Christians following Jesus' example, we are to welcome and embrace difference... not to simply "tolerate" it as a different stream from white culture.

That said, my readers should know that Social Justice as expressed by DEI or CRT or even Intersectionality, is neither liberal nor marxist but the ethically right thing to do when placing emphasis on one's brothers and sisters rather than insisting on assimilating church members - as a rite of fundamental Christian passage - into the local white "Christian" culture so that "traditional" Christian whites might "tolerate" non-white cultures better:

The correct usage of terms, and honest declarations of purpose, are much better policies and more helpful to Christian mission than when claiming white privilege in usurping Scripture and faith under false ideologies of faith privilege.

Thus and thus, "Toleration" is a poisonous outlook and unhelpful in today's metamodern worlds of global exchange, eco-building, or conjoined human activities for humanity, equality, resource sharing, and justice. Like DEI and CRT, global intersectionality would be applauded by Jesus even if his children don't like it, fear it, and conspire against it with tricky self-righteous words like "toleration" betrayed by the users themselves trying to navigate their imposter faith with Jesus.

R.E. Slater
July 26, 2022




What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?



Diversity is the presence of differences that may include race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, language, (dis)ability, age, religious commitment, or political perspective. Populations that have been-and remain- underrepresented among practitioners in the field and marginalized in the broader society.


Equity is promoting justice, impartiality and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems. Tackling equity issues requires an understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society.


Inclusion is an outcome to ensure those that are diverse actually feel and/or are welcomed. Inclusion outcomes are met when you, your institution, and your program are truly inviting to all. To the degree to which diverse individuals are able to participate fully in the decision-making processes and development opportunities within an organization or group.


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THE CRITICAL RACE TO DEI
- MORE THAN A THEORY

by Cherrie L. Davis
July 14, 2021


I am an expert on DEI. I am not sure why it started, but once I embraced it, I learned more. As I learned more, I was better able to help leaders forge a path that includes diversity in considering the best ways to create equitable workplaces. These workplaces foster creativity and innovation.

The study of race in America, critical race theory or CRT, has been an academic discipline that looks at history and law. The topic made headlines last September when former president Trump denounced it, however the academic study began in the 1940’s as scholars began piecing together events and timeframes that led to inequalities in post-emancipation United States.

I wrote recently about DEI and the confusion it can create. CRT is an addition to the alphabet soup that is bitter and uncomfortable to talk about—but we must talk about it. Not talking about it is what has gotten us to where we are, and it isn’t hearts and flowers all the time. In order to get to where we’re going, we need to understand DEI, CRT, and, to be poetic, what they mean to me (the DEI expert).

DEI, a ReCap

Diversity, equity, and inclusion. In a nutshell it is seeing differences and accepting those differences—some will call it being woke. When we address our differences, we can ask the natural questions: what is your culture (African American, Caribbean, Mexican, Pacific Islander, Chinese, Cambodian, Honduran)? Inclusion is not lumping all cultures into large generic buckets and accepting the stereotypes about them, not all Asians are good with numbers and not every Cuban can do magic with pork.

CRT, which we will get to, focuses on race in America, but DEI looks at gender, ability, age, religion, and other differences among people. Learning the unique things about a person allows them to be who they are without trying to fit into a prescribed box that either doesn’t belong to them or that may be true of other people of their culture but is not true of them. When people can be fully who they are, they are able to produce their best work and isn’t that what we as leaders want to provide?

Getting Critical (in Theory)

Critical race theory takes an accurate look at American history. It studies painful parts of US history, primarily the ways black people, descendants of slaves as well as black immigrants, are treated in the US.

As you might imagine, that creates some tension within the race whose history has been predominant—Anglo Saxons aka white people. It also creates a necessity to unlearn what we’ve been taught and relearn things like Reconstruction, violence towards black people, and how practices like convict labor created new forms of slavery.

CRT got its push into the forefront of academia in the mid 1980’s when scholars began researching governmental policies and legal cases. The research led to a difficult realization in research-based spheres, a truth many of us knew for a long time—the law is not neutral and that there is more than one correct answer for legal cases. CRT looks at post-abolition systems in the United States, how they favor whites, and how seemingly good intentions changed to bend the arc of justice back to where it always was.

This challenge to the status quo opens the door for people of color to consider their status and work to improve their cultural value and social standing. The very idea is contentious. The truth, however, is that history is written by the victor. CRT is looking at US history to identify places where liberty and justice was not for all and to empower people to move forward to create the country of equality alluded to at the start of our nation.

Intersectionality—Big Word, Important Mission

The convergence of race in US history and embracing diversity is the place of another academic word: intersectionality. If diversity is so great and critical race theory is an integral piece of DEI—which we’ve agreed is leadership goals–then shouldn’t we encourage CRT? At the intersection of these 2 ideas is the hard work that needs to be done. CRT forces us to face our dark past and accept that our history is not the amalgam of people lifted from the jungles of Africa to come to the new land where their mistreatment was rewarded by freedom.

The biggest debates are happening in Board of Education meetings across the country. Parents want to prevent the ugly parts of history from being taught before their students can understand it or they simply do not want it taught at all. By the time we see it in our workplaces, how we got to this moment matters little. What matters is how we address it and what we do to move forward in our common humanity, providing inclusive and equitable workplaces for everyone (enter the words of your HR DEI statement here).

There is nothing new about DEI or CRT. When CRT became soundbites taken out of context, it became the critical focus of our divided political state. In truth, we have been working on the move forward since the mid 1980’s. Maybe, though, we have been trying to be too easy on ourselves. We have tried to do the work of DEI without looking at why we need it. CRT focuses on race, but the questions at the intersection of the two are the same: How have we historically treated people? Have we used laws to validate our action or inaction? Have we let what we’ve been taught lead our thoughts, right or wrong? Ouch. Are you more afraid of losing your power to gain equity? Or, do you have to work to overcome beliefs about your culture before you can even begin to begin to create your best work? Are you exhausted? I’m a DEI expert and I’m exhausted—but the work must go on.

This is where honest, uncomfortable conversations need to happen. They need to happen with you to prevent the kind of heated arguments that we are seeing in the news now in your breakrooms.

Shift Points:
  • You know you. Consider what you think you may need to unlearn.
  • Accepting our past in its entirety is the key to moving forward together.
  • Everyone has overcome something. Be vulnerable enough to hear and to share with others.

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INTERSECTIONALITY: WHAT IS IT
AND WHY IT MATTERS

At UBC we believe excellence cannot be achieved without inclusion. But how we are included is shaped by how we present ourselves, the ways we are seen by others, the systems and norms of our campus, and how they all intersect. For the VPFO to meet our objectives around operational excellence, we each need to develop our understanding of people’s unique experiences, opportunities, and barriers.

What is intersectionality?


Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and professor at UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, talks about intersectional theory

Kimberlé Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and professor at both the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School. Kimberlé has created a way to think about our identities and how we experience the world called intersectionality.

Intersectionality is a framework that describes how our overlapping social identities relate to social structures of racism and oppression. Intersectionality merges many identity markers, including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, and more, to create a more truthful and complex identity.

For example, a queer black woman may experience the world on the basis of her sexuality, gender, and race — a unique experience based on how those identities intersect in her life.

Why is it important?

Intersectionality is directly tied to oppression. Oppression is the force that allows, through the power of norms and systems, the unjust treatment or control of people. Intersectionality shows us that social identities work on multiple levels, resulting in unique experiences, opportunities, and barriers for each person. Therefore, oppression cannot be reduced to only one part of an identity; each oppression is dependent on and shapes the other.

Understanding intersectionality is essential to combatting the interwoven prejudices people face in their daily lives.

What can I do?

By reflecting on our own identities, their intersections, and practice being mindful we can become better allies for marginalized groups or better able to articulate our own experience.

Wheel of power and privilege

Click the image for a larger view

This wheel diagram, the Wheel of Power/Privilege, is a simplified way to reflect on the many intersecting identities and power structures that we all engage with. Consider how your social identities play into your privilege. What areas sound like you? What types of privilege aren’t on the wheel? How are others you work with represented on the wheel?

Learning about intersectionality and how it affects all of us, both in our work and personal lives, allow us to respectfully communicate with peers, and deepens our understanding of the ways in which diversity, equity, and inclusion are relevant to our community.

To learn more about intersectionality, you can watch this TEDx talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw or read this Intersectionality Report by Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Houses.



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Kristin Du Mez: How White Evangelicals Corrupted
a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Nov 2, 2021

Hollywood’s strong men icon, portrayed by actors like John Wayne and Mel Gibson, have coopted core biblical teachings such as loving one’s neighbors and enemies, adding a militant battle cry. Mainstream evangelical leaders preach a “mutually reinforcing vision of Christian masculinity – of patriarchy and submission, sex and power.” 
In her NYT best-seller, Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Du Mez traces how a militant ideal of white, Christian manhood has come to pervade evangelical popular culture in America. She argues this has led to the hero worship of Donald Trump, who embodies the ideal of militant masculinity, protector and warrior.
Cambridge Forum welcomed Du Mez to talk about her book with historians Jon Butler and Jemar Tisby. This talk is part of the Cambridge Forum’s THE SEARCH FOR MEANING, a 3 part series looking at the benefits and failures of organized religion in the US.
GBH Forum Network ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas. 
See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org


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A supporter of then-President Donald Trump prays outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington.


An 'imposter Christianity' is threatening
American democracy

Analysis by John Blake, CNN
Sun July 24, 2022


(CNN)Three men, eyes closed and heads bowed, pray before a rough-hewn wooden cross. Another man wraps his arms around a massive Bible pressed against his chest like a shield. All throughout the crowd, people wave "Jesus Saves" banners and pump their fists toward the sky.

At first glance, these snapshots look like scenes from an outdoor church rally. But this event wasn't a revival; it was what some call a Christian revolt. These were photos of people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, during an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The insurrection marked the first time many Americans realized the US is facing a burgeoning White Christian nationalist movement. This movement uses Christian language to cloak sexism and hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in its quest to create a White Christian America.

A report from a team of clergy, scholars and advocates — sponsored by two groups that advocate for the separation of church and state — concluded that this ideology was used to "bolster, justify and intensify" the attack on the US Capitol.

Demonstrators pray outside the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.


Much of the House January 6 committee's focus so far has been on right-wing extremist groups. But there are plenty of other Americans who have adopted teachings of the White Christian nationalists who stormed the Capitol — often without knowing it, scholars, historians, sociologists and clergy say.

White Christian nationalist beliefs have infiltrated the religious mainstream so thoroughly that virtually any conservative Christian pastor who tries to challenge its ideology risks their career, says Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the New York Times bestseller, "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation."

"These ideas are so widespread that any individual pastor or Christian leader who tries to turn the tide and say, 'Let's look again at Jesus and scripture,' are going to be tossed aside," she says.

The ideas are also insidious because many sound like expressions of Christian piety or harmless references to US history. But White Christian nationalists interpret these ideas in ways that are potentially violent and heretical. Their movement is not only anti-democratic, it contradicts the life and teachings of Jesus, some clergy, scholars and historians say.

Samuel Perry, a professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma who is authority on the ideology, calls it an "imposter Christianity."

Here are three key beliefs often tied to White Christian nationalism.

A belief that the US was founded as a Christian nation

One of the banners spotted at the January 6 insurrection was a replica of the American flag with the caption, "Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President."

Erasing the line separating piety from politics is a key characteristic of White Christian nationalism. Many want to reduce or erase the separation of church and state, say those who study the movement.

One of the most popular beliefs among White Christian nationalists is that the US was founded as a Christian nation; the Founding Fathers were all orthodox, evangelical Christians; and God has chosen the US for a special role in history.

This painting chronicles lawmakers' signing of the Constitution of the United States in 1787.


These beliefs are growing among Christians, according to a survey last year by the Barna Group, a company that conducts surveys about faith and culture for communities of faith and nonprofits. The group found that an "increasing number of American Christians believe strongly" that the US is a Christian nation, has not oppressed minorities, and has been chosen by God to lead the world.

But the notion that the US was founded as a Christian nation is bad history and bad theology, says Philip Gorski, a sociologist at Yale University and co-author of "The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy."

"It's a half truth, a mythological version of American history," Gorski says.

Some Founding Fathers did view the founding of the nation through a Biblical lens, Gorski says. (Every state constitution contains a reference to God or the divine.)
But many did not. And virtually none of them could be classified as evangelical Christians. They were a collection of atheists, Unitarians, Deists, and liberal Protestants and other denominations.

A Trump supporter holds a Bible as he gathers with
others outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.


The Constitution also says nothing about God, the Bible or the Ten Commandments, Gorski says. And saying the US was founded as a Christian nation ignores the fact that much of its initial wealth was derived from slave labor and land stolen from Native Americans, he says.

For evidence that the United States was founded as a secular nation, look no further than the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, an agreement the US negotiated with a country in present-day Libya to end the practice of pirates attacking American ships. It was ratified unanimously by a Senate still half-filled with signers of the Constitution and declared, "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on Christian religion."

Does this mean that any White Christian who salutes the flag and says they love their country is a Christian nationalist? No, not at all, historians say. A White Christian who says they love America and its values and institutions is not the same thing as a White Christian nationalist, scholars say.

Gorski also notes that many devout Black Americans have exhibited a form of patriotism that does not degenerate into Christian nationalism.

American social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, circa 1880.


Gorski points to examples of the 19th century abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both were devout Christians who expressed admiration for America and its founding documents. But their patriotism also meant that "they challenged the nation to live up to its highest principles, to become a place of freedom, equality, justice and inclusion," he says.

The patriotism of White Christian nationalists, on the other hand, is a form of racial tribalism, Gorski says.

"It's a 'My tribe. 'We [White people] were here first. This is our country, and we don't like people who are trying to change it or people who are different' form of nationalism," Gorski says.

A belief in a 'Warrior Christ'

Videos from the January 6 attack show a chaotic, tear-gas-soaked scene at the Capitol that looked more like a medieval battle. Insurrectionists punched police officers, used flagpoles as spears and smashed officers' faces against doors while a mob chanted, "Fight for Trump!" The attack left five people dead and nearly 140 law enforcement officers injured.

The incongruity of people carrying "Jesus Saves" signs while joining a mob whose members are pummeling police officers leads to an obvious question: How can White Christian nationalists who claim to follow Jesus, the "Prince of Peace" who renounced violence in the Gospels, support a violent insurrection?

A protester holds up a Bible amid the crowd storming the
US Capitol Rotunda in Washington on January 6, 2021.


That's because they follow a different Jesus than the one depicted in the Gospels, says Du Mez, who is also a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University — a Christian school — in Michigan. They follow the Jesus depicted in the Book of Revelation, the warrior with eyes like "flames of fire" and "a robe dipped in blood" who led the armies of heaven on white horses in a final, triumphant battle against the forces of the antichrist.

White Christian nationalists have refashioned Jesus into a kick-butt savior who is willing to smite enemies to restore America to a Christian nation by force, if necessary, Du Mez and others say.

While warlike language like putting on "the full armor of God" has long been common in Christian sermons and hymns, it has largely been interpreted as metaphorical. But many White Christian nationalists take that language literally.

Read more from John Blake:

That was clear on January 6. Some insurrectionists wore caps emblazoned with "God, Guns, Trump" and chanted that the blood of Jesus was washing Congress clean. One wrote "In God We Trust" on a set of gallows erected at the Capitol.

"They want the warrior Christ who wields a bloody sword and defeats his enemies," says Du Mez. "They want to battle with that Jesus. That Jesus brings peace, but only after he slays his enemies."

And that Jesus sanctions the use of righteous violence if a government opposes God, she says.

"If you deem somebody in power to be working against the goals of a Christian America, then you should not submit to that authority and you should displace that authority," she says. "Because the stakes are so high, the ends justify the means."

Supporters of then-President Donald Trump gather on the Ellipse
near the White House to hear him speak on January 6, 2021.


That ends-justify-the means approach is a key part of White Christian nationalism, says Du Mez. It's why so many rallied behind former President Trump on January 6. She says he embodies a "militant White masculinity" that condones callous displays of power and appeals to Christian nationalists.

But with few exceptions, White Christian nationalists do not accept this "militant masculinity" when exhibited by Black, Middle Eastern and Latino men, Du Mez writes in "Jesus and John Wayne." Aggression by people of color "is seen as a threat to the stability of home and nation," she writes.

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson echoed this double standard last year when he said on a radio talk show that he never really felt threatened by the mostly White mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6.

"Now, had ... President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said.

Johnson later elaborated, saying "there was nothing racial about my comments-- nothing whatsoever."

This embrace of a warrior Christ has shaped some White evangelicals' attitudes on issues ranging from political violence to gun safety laws.

A survey last year by the Public Religion Research Institute revealed that of all respondents, White evangelicals were the religious group most likely to agree with the statement, "true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save the country."

There are also some White Christian nationalists who believe the Second Amendment was handed down by God.

Gun rights activists carrying semi-automatic firearms pose for a photograph
in the state Capitol Building on January 31, 2020, in Frankfort, Kentucky.


Samuel Perry, co-author of "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States," wrote in a recent essay that among Americans surveyed who believe "The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation," over two-thirds rejected the idea that the federal government should enact stricter gun laws."

"The more you line up with Christian nationalism, the less likely you are to support gun control," wrote Perry. "Guns are practically an element of worship in the church of white Christian nationalism."

A belief there's such a person as a 'real American'

In the 2008 presidential election, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin introduced a new term to the political discourse. She talked about "the real America" and the "pro-America areas of this great nation." Since then, many conservative political candidates have used the term "real Americans" to draw contrasts between their supporters and their opposition.

Such language has been co-opted into a worldview held by many White Christian nationalists: The nation is divided between "real Americans" and other citizens who don't deserve the same rights, experts on White Christian nationalism say.

Republican vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks
at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.


Gorski, author of "The Flag and the Cross," says he found in his research a strong correlation between White Christian nationalism and support for gerrymandering—an electoral process where politicians manipulate district lines to favor one party or, some critics say, race over another. He found similar support among White Christian nationalists for the Electoral College, which gives disproportionate political power to many rural, largely White areas of the country.

When White Christian nationalists claim an election was stolen, they are reflecting the belief that some votes don't count, he says.

"It's the idea that we are the people, and our vote should count, and you're not the people, and... you don't really deserve to have a voice," Gorski says. "It doesn't matter what the voting machines say, because we know that all real Americans voted for Donald Trump."

Why White Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy

Those who want the US to become a Christian nation face a huge obstacle: Most Americans don't subscribe to their vision of America.

The mainstreaming of White Christian nationalism comes as a growing number of Americans are rejecting organized religion. For the first time in the US last year, membership in communities of worship fell below 50%. Belief in God is at an all-time low, according to a recent Gallup poll.

A parishioner bows his head to pray while celebrating midnight Mass
at St. Patrick's Cathedral on December 24, 2021, in New York City.


Add to that the country's growing racial and religious diversity. People who identify as White alone declined for the first time since the census began in 1790, and the majority of Americans under 18 are now people of color.

On the surface, White Christian nationalism should not be on the ascent in America.

So White Christian nationalists look for salvation from two sources.

One is the emboldened conservative majority on the US Supreme Court, where recent decisions overturning Roe vs. Wade and protecting school prayer offer them hope.

Critics, on the other hand, say the high court is eroding the separation of church and state.

Not all Christians who support the high court's overturning of Roe v. Wade and its school prayer decision are White nationalists. For example, plenty of Roman Catholics of all races support racial justice yet also backed the overturning of Roe.

But White Christian nationalists are inspired by those decisions because one of their central goals is to erase the separation of church and state in the US.

A recent study concluded that five of the justices on the Supreme Court are the "most pro-religion since at least World War II," and that the six conservative justices are "all Christian, mostly Catholic," and "religiously devout."

The sun sets in front of the Supreme Court on June 28, 2022, in Washington.
A Supreme Court decision last month overturned the landmark
 Roe v. Wade ruling and erased a federal right to an abortion.


While some Americans fear the dangers of one-party rule, others like Pamela Paul, a columnist, warn of the Supreme Court instituting one-religion rule.

"With their brand of religious dogma losing its purchase, they're imposing it on the country themselves," she wrote in a recent New York Times editorial.

Gorski, the historian, says White Christian nationalism represents a grave threat to democracy because it defines "we the people" in a way that excludes many Americans.

"The United States cannot be both a truly multiracial democracy -- a people of people and a nation of nations -- and a white Christian nation at the same time," Gorski wrote in "The Flag and the Cross." "This is why white Christian nationalism has become a serious threat to American democracy, perhaps the most serious threat it now faces."

The other source of hope for White Christian nationalists is a former occupant of the White House. Their devotion to him is illustrated by one of most striking images from the January 6 insurrection: A sign depicting a Nordic-looking Jesus wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat.

If Trump returns to the presidency, some White Christian nationalists may interpret his political resurrection as divine intervention. His support among White evangelicals increased from 2016 to 2020.

And what the men carrying wooden crosses among the Capitol mob couldn't achieve on January 6, they might yet accomplish in 2024.



Friday, July 22, 2022

Marcel, the Shell with Shoes - 2022 Reviews & Quotes + Early Marcel Vids 2010,2011,2014




Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Official Trailer HD | A24




Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Part 1
2010




Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Part 2
2011




Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Part 3
2014




* * * * * * *




The Reason ‘Marcel the Shell With
Shoes On’ Will Absolutely Destroy You
NO, NOW YOU’RE CRYING: When our beloved wise-cracking mollusk first went viral, we were at an internet crossroads. We clearly chose the wrong path. The glorious (devastating) new film shows us why.
Published Jul. 01, 2022

Marcel (the Shell (with Shoes On)) found his way to me during sophomore year of college, back when being online didn’t feel like such a chore.

I think it was around 2011. My friend pulled up this video featuring a stop-motion shell equipped with one large googly eye and, naturally, shoes. We watched the video, commented on how many people had seen it, and wrote it off. But throughout the rest of that spring–which turned out to be one hell of a terrible semester–I kept going back to it. Life sucked in that specific way that life is terrible for a 20-year-old, and as it turned out, the remedy was always more shell. So on nights where I’d decided to simply blow off homework, I’d dive into YouTube, eat Domino’s pizza and drink whiskey from a plastic bottle, and find my way, eventually, to Marcel.

I feel like over the years people have told me that’s what Marcel became for them, too: a palm-sized, quirky salve whose debut marked this peculiar crux of the internet’s history before the World Wide Web felt so perpetually toxic.

The original short film-turned-YouTube video from Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate amassed over 32 million views–a bona fide viral video when that kind of thing was still impressive. It spawned two short sequels, and then eventually, we didn’t hear from Marcel anymore. Twelve years went by. 4chan devolved into 8chan (yikes) and TikTok replaced Vine. Social media became an opinion cesspool and the likes of Marcel didn’t seem to have much of a place in the culture anymore, relegated to wherever Charlie the Unicorn and Philosoraptor exist.


Then, in the chaos of 2022, A24 announced that it would be releasing a feature-length mockumentary titled Marcel the Shell with Shoes On from Fleischer-Camp. For the die-hard fans, that was terrible news because there’s a certain cringe that often comes along with pulling the past into the present (see: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Will & Grace, Fear Factor’s Joe Rogan). If anyone should avoid 2022, it’s the perpetually earnest and optimistic Marcel the Shell.

The original Marcel the Shell video appeared online at a time that felt like a fork in the road. Marcel is the road we did not travel. We opted instead for something harsher and vitriolic. We lost the good faith that Marcel encapsulated.

In a bittersweet twist, Marcel the Shell, as we know him, does not come back. Or rather, it’s not all we see of him. Instead of recreating the past, the film recognizes that no matter which viral fame you’ve achieved–the pure one of 2010 or the infamous one of 2022–there’s a life that’s happening on the other side of the screen.

In the 10 years or so since we last saw Marcel, we discover that the two people whose house he lives in have since separated (a presumed nod to the 2016 divorce between Fleischer-Camp and Slate, both of whom, excitedly, returned for the film). In the wake of their departure, Marcel’s shell family has disappeared as well, except for his Nana Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini).

In the film’s earlier scenes, we get callbacks and quotables from the original short film, but then the movie pivots. Nana Connie has what appears to be signs of dementia. On good days, she gets a bit lost. On bad ones, she gets hurt. Marcel, still squeaky and youthful, has fallen into the role of caregiver. She is insistent that he continues to live his life and find his missing family; he’s determined to stick by her side.

In the excitement of gaining internet fame, Marcel and Fleischer-Camp (who cameos in the film as the documentarian) go on a day-long search for Marcel’s family, but when they return, Marcel finds that all the fans who were inspired to help him are mostly interested in grabbing a selfie in front of the house. Dancing on TikTok. Posting something online as a braggy souvenir from when they doxxed Marcel. Worse, inside the house, the commotion has caused Nana Connie to fall and injure herself.

The short of it is that Marcel’s life isn’t quite as easy as it once looked online either. Like a lot of us, we look incredible via what we choose to share online. But when Marcel–and again, I’d like to recognize that we’re discussing a shell with a googly eye–is offered to us over the course of 98 minutes, life isn’t easy as it seemed to be in those three minute clips.

The film gets at the struggle that comes with grief, but more importantly, how easy it is to get trapped in the incompatible online version of ourselves. At one point in the film, Marcel questions Fleischer-Camp for not sharing any personal details about his life, saying, “You can connect with people when you’re not filming them.”


The moment underlines the entirety of the film–regardless of viral fame or the personas we build online, there’s always more going on than the internet suggests. And maybe the reason we lie about it all is because it feels like that’s our own escape. Or that we can create something better than what we’re living. Like Fleischer-Camp, it’s easier to post about what we’re seeing than it is to get into what plagues our day to day. But Marcel the Shell pushes past that. Marcel of 2010 showed us how pure life can be on the Internet. Marcel of 2022 shows us how pure it can be when you log off.

For those who’ve seen the film, you know that the whole story culminates in an interview with the fearless Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes–an offer Marcel initially declines for fear of drawing more attention to himself and endangering Nana Connie. Frustrated at Marcel for turning it down and refusing to accept the opportunity in front of him, she feigns a sudden reversal in health so that Marcel will do the interview. As he and Fleischer-Camp sit before Stahl and do their interview, Nana Connie sits in the window sill, recites “The Trees,” a poem by Philip Larkin, and then when the film cuts back, she is gone.

As Marcel tries to make sense of her death a few scenes later, he finds himself drawn to a cracked window. He turns to the camera and explains that he comes there to speak to Nana Connie. The air moving through the crack hits his shell and makes a dull whistle, and he says with a smile, “Suddenly we’re one large instrument.”


You’d think, 12 years into the future and squarely in my thirties, this wouldn’t hit me as hard as it might have in my plastic-bottled whiskey drinking days, but I was in the back of the theater, releasing those little mini breaths you run into when you’re trying not to emotionally explode in public. Between sniffs, I heard the fully adult man beside me choking back the same breaths. When the lights came up, I laughed and said, “I’m glad you were the one sitting beside me because I know that you got it,” and he said, “I thought the same thing about you, too.”

I’m not entirely sure what I meant by that–maybe that we were two grown men crying at a stop motion shell from the internet. Or that in the era of cynicism and skepticism, we allowed ourselves to cry at this earnest message about grief and life. I suspect it’s probably more in line with why I finally decided I was crying. A special piece of my life found a way to circle back to me a decade later. Not to wax nostalgic about the past but to find me where I needed it, at the same place I was.

And yeah, none of this would have come to be had Marcel not been extremely online. But the best part of Marcel’s story–the purest piece that I’ll carry with me–happened when he logged off.


* * * * * * *

The Trees
by Philip Larkin


The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.



In Praise of the Simple Beauties
of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Olivia Rutigliano on the New Movie
about the Internet's Favorite Anthropomorphic Mollusk

July 1, 2022

This week, I saw a dear old friend at the movies and I am pleased to say that he seems better than ever.

I first became acquainted with the character known as “Marcel the Shell” in my college dorm room nearly a decade ago. My sister had sent me a link to a popular YouTube video, a short stop-motion film in which a tiny seashell with a googly eye and a pair of pink plastic sneakers takes a cameraman around the house where he resides—a giant house, a human’s house—and explains how he lives his miniature life.

He exists inventively, resourcefully. He scrounges for things that he might turn into tools and gadgets and furniture. “Guess what I use as a beanbag chair?” he asks the filmmaker capturing him. “A raisin.” He uses stray hairs as string, pretends a ball of lint is his pet dog. Most of the film is like this: a little vérité-style preview into this charming lifestyle which is a dilated, cobbled-together version of our own.

Crucially, this short—entitled Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and made by Dean Fleisher-Camp and Jenny Slate—is not about a little world as much as it is about a little life. The immense charms of Marcel’s handmade (shellmade?) surroundings are surpassed by the palpable spunk of its resident. Marcel is curious, sentimental, indefatigable, and a little bit sassy. He informs the camera, “Some people say my head is too big for my body… and I say… ‘compared to what?'”

Marcel is able to produce beauty in his world by seeing everyday objects in a different way, and so too does the film.

The original Marcel the Shell short, posted to YouTube in 2010, became a phenomenon. The lore is that Slate and Fleisher-Camp had created him accidentally—she produced the funny voice, and he built a model to match. Indeed, Slate speaks about the character not as something she and Fleisher-Camp created, but as a whole identity who was inside both of them and managed to manifest from them, like Athena climbing out fully grown from Zeus’s head or Aphrodite emerging as her adult self from, well, a shell. Marcel is his own person, a fully coherent individual, even to his creators.

In real life, Marcel drew crowds and fans for his cuteness but held onto them because of his unique perspective. The popularity of the initial short video generated several sequels and two children’s books. And now, 12 years later, he has finally made his feature film debut.

Directed by Dean-Fleisher Camp, co-written by Jenny Slate and Nick Paley, and produced by A24, this feature version, also entitled Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, revisits the last few years of Marcel content while also reworking it. The story is about Dean, a filmmaker, who finds a tiny sentient shell living in the Los Angeles Airbnb he’s staying in, and gets the idea to film his daily routine. Marcel lives with his loving grandmother, Nana Connie (Isabella Rosselini), and they spend their days gardening, talking, watching 60 Minutes on Sundays, and rigging contraptions to get basic things done. “It’s pretty much common knowledge that it takes at least 20 shells to have a community,” Marcel informs Dean. But it’s just him and Nana Connie in the house—the rest of their giant group has vanished (probably accidentally packed in a suitcase and taken away by the last couple to stay there).What results is a tender 89-minute film about the bonds that fortify our lives, from new friendships to intergenerational care.

In the film, the shorts that Dean has posted to YouTube make Marcel a kind of celebrity, and he decides to try to use his newfound notoriety to find his missing family. But his attentions are split between the longing to find his community and the desire to care for the one he already has: Nana Connie seems to be experiencing a kind of dementia, and Marcel, ever-loving, wants to use all his energy caring for her and keeping her safe. The life they live together is special and beautiful, and he doesn’t want to miss a minute of that.

What results is a tender 89-minute film about the bonds that fortify our lives, from new friendships to intergenerational care. 

Marcel wonders a lot about the different ways we connect to people; the discovery of the internet has him negotiating the difference between a community and an audience. Narratively, it is about what it means to build a life with someone, but it’s peppered with questions like these.

And thematically, of course, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On cannot help but be about our relationships to objects, too. So much of the film is about Marcel’s material life and his practical mindset: how he uses objects to make his life easier (for example, he climbs inside a tennis ball and uses it to traverse the house).

But it is also about how Marcel’s inch-tall perspective opens up the potential of objects and materials—not just pragmatically but aesthetically. Marcel is able to produce beauty in his world by seeing everyday objects in a different way, and so too does the film. Some of the most beautiful moments are simple, silent camera shots over the tiny treehouses built in the Airbnb’s planters, or a pattern (made with arugula leaves, flower buds, and green peas) Marcel arranges into the dirt in a window box outside. And then there is Marcel himself, this little anthropomorphic mollusk (I guess?) with his own special kind of wisdom, reminding us the ways in which even things around us are all creatures, great and small.

I find myself, after this particularly trying week in America, grateful to be seeing Marcel again.

One of the film’s many, many motifs is a reminder to pause and notice the beauty of the world around us—to live slowly and receptively, to stop and realize that we are all, in our ways, so small, and to remember the ways our lives can still make big impacts. But more than this, the film is clear that we are all (in a way) objects, all instruments. We are vehicles for beauty and love, if we only open ourselves up and let them flow through us.

This might seem trite, but if it does, that is my fault. I find myself, after this particularly trying week in America, grateful to be seeing Marcel again, shining in all his sincere glory from inside the most profound iteration of his chronicle yet. I am desperate to impart the splendidness and the earnestness of this achievement, committed to illuminating others to the wonders of this movie, candid about his ever-present perch in my heart but adamant that this film will appeal even to those who have never seen him before.

The film is genuine, never-cloying, always poignant. Nearly every shot is suffused with soft, golden sunshine and an ever so hazy, dreamlike grain. It is a warm, delicate, perfect project—a beautiful revisitation of and tribute to a character so surprisingly special and plucky that his relevance has outlasted a decade of changing popular cultural norms. Through everything, no matter what else there is, we are reminded that there is Marcel, there is Marcel, and there will always be Marcel.


* * * * * * *


Dean Fleischer Camp, director for “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,”
holds Marcel in his hands. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times


How ‘Marcel the Shell’ went from viral sensation
to 2022’s most adorable movie star

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
June 24, 2022


Minuscule in mass but colossal in charm, Marcel, a one-eyed mollusk with a pair of pink sneakers attached to his exoskeleton, became an online sensation in late 2010. That’s when filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp and comedian and actor Jenny Slate, then a couple, unleashed his irresistible persona in a stop-motion short film on YouTube.

Over a decade later, following two more viral videos, their adorable brainchild now stars in the full-length mockumentary “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” which A24 is releasing exclusively in theaters this weekend. But the journey from the no-budget original shorts to the feature adventure, which premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival, involved plenty of tiny but assertive steps.

The origins

Marcel’s childlike voice, where his heart-melting power resides, is Slate’s creation. She first summoned the soft-spoken tone during a trip for a friend’s wedding 12 years ago. To save money, she and Camp were sharing a hotel room with several people.

“I was feeling really cramped and I just started talking in this little voice, and we all thought it was funny,” Slate told The Times ahead of the film’s release. That playful impulse would soon take the shape of the now-beloved character known for sharing unexpectedly profound existential observations from a refreshingly clear-sighted perspective.

Jenny Slate conceived the voice of
Marcel over a decade ago.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

When the weekend was over, a panicked Camp remembered a promise to make a video for a friend’s stand-up comedy show. He immediately thought of interviewing Slate in that new voice and began building an idea around it. After recording the lines, he proceeded to handcraft a figure to personify them.

“Dean did such beautiful character design. When I saw Marcel standing on the kitchen table, I just felt so sure that that was him, like how people feel when they are in love at first sight,” noted Slate. “That’s how I felt about Marcel.”

Without previous knowledge of the stop-motion animation process, the director created the character, animated it, edited the scenes and screened Marcel’s first-ever appearance — all within 48 hours. At the time a self-proclaimed perfectionist, Camp had no intention to upload the short piece online until someone at the show inquired about the possibility of showing the wondrous sea creature to their grandmother.

“Now I derive a lot of meaning from the fact that he’s a shell, but back then, I was just trying to make a small, cute character out of found objects,” he said. “There’s an emotionality to that voice that I think I was trying to embody by using objects that you might find under your couch or in the back of a drawer. That was the impetus for it creatively.”

Slate can trace that interest in the inner lives of inanimate objects to a series of comedic videos, made long before Marcel came to be, where a variety of items narrate their lives or sing about their feelings. “One that I still love is of a container of powdered milk singing a tragic song about how nobody wants to use it because it’s not real milk. And that it’s very lonely,” she said with a laugh.

Since Marcel lives in the human world, Slate said that one of the major joys of creating his microcosms lies in repurposing household items from their intended use for his everyday activities. “I love figuring out how Marcel does things or what he wears for what. Suddenly all the objects around me are imbued with such possibility,” she said.

In “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” Marcel watches
as he becomes an internet sensation. (Courtesy of A24)


How ‘Marcel’ became a movie

As Marcel’s short films went viral online, Hollywood studios and networks approached Camp and Slate. The duo took the meetings, but were wary of attempts to attach Marcel to a more familiar tentpole template.

“I remember somebody suggested that we partner Marcel with Ryan Reynolds so they could fight crime. I’m not saying I wouldn’t watch that movie, but I just knew that was not the right avenue to pursue for him,” he recalled. “I wanted to make a movie that was personal and did justice to the internet love for this character. We knew after that round of meetings, ‘If we’re going to expand Marcel, it needs to be made independently.’”

Even before a movie was on the horizon, the co-creators published two books illustrated by artist Amy Lind: “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me” in 2011 and “Marcel the Shell: The Most Surprised I’ve Ever Been” in 2014. For Slate, the second tome represented a breakthrough in the development of the character’s emotional complexity.

“That one not only goes deeper into exploring Marcel’s perspective as a very small creature, but also begins to show his philosophy on life and what his preferences are,” said Slate. “We really get to know him and there are sweet little musings in there.”

Through it all, Camp and Slate continued collecting ideas and jokes for a possible feature film, without any specific story angle.

With time, the two realized that what they found compelling about Marcel directly related to their own preoccupations, such as the internet fame that their creation had amassed. That’s when Marcel’s journey to the big screen began to crystallize.

Dean Fleischer Camp, director & writer
of “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.”
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Joining creative forces with co-writer Nick Paley, the team wrote a long treatment and started hosting recording sessions where Slate would give form to Marcel’s dialogue with spur of the moment ingenuity. Based on what those improvisation meetings yielded, Camp and Paley slowly polished and rerouted the plot.

“They would put together a patchwork of transcription of recorded audio and then write new scenes. Then we would record off of those written new scenes and improvise off of them too,” said Slate. “Most of the film is highly improvised, while some parts were word-for-word written out, depending on what Dean and Nick decided to do.”

“We were writing and recording for two and a half years, but probably 10 to 12 days of that we were recording audio periodically,” added Camp. “We’d record with Jenny again, she’d give us all this new, great material, and then we would incorporate it into the script.”

During this process, renowned actress and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini came aboard to voice Marcel’s wise and cheeky grandmother, Nana Connie. Fleischer-Camp had been fascinated with the series of peculiar short films Rossellini created for the Sundance Channel in the late 2000s titled “Green Porno,” focused on animal behavior and mating rituals.

“She’s more like Nana Connie than I think any other role she’s played. She has an inner strength and a real mettle to her,” he said. “She also knows a ton about farming. She lives on a farm that she works with several other people.” (Some of the audio of Nana Connie talking about her strawberries in the finished film comes from the director’s interview with Rossellini about her real-life crops.)

Dean and Marcel the Shell | (Courtesy of A24)

Dean plays himself

As with the short films, which were framed as nonfiction shorts about Marcel made by a filmmaker named Dean, Camp knew his voice would also feature in the larger project. But he wasn’t keen on appearing in front of the camera as a somewhat fictionalized version of himself.

“It wasn’t part of the original pitch. Although going in, we did have the idea that Dean would evolve in this way and that Marcel would sort of push him out of his comfort zone,” he said. “Dean would have to confront artistic, but also personal questions on role of the director. ‘How much do you help a documentary subject when they’re in need?’ ‘What does that relationship consist of?’ Those got explored as a result of making the film.”

As Slate notes, Marcel also ponders the cause and effect of what it means to be filmed. The short films that made him famous in our reality also exist in the feature as documentaries, and Marcel is aware of them and affected by their success and fandom.

“He had thought he was just in conversation. But then, the short films that the filmmaker Dean puts online end up affecting him. They affect his point of view,” said Slate. “They affect what he thinks is possible. They cause him to hope when hope is often painful. We see all of that because Marcel continues to engage.”

Eventually the director gave in to playing Dean on camera — and the character has a fuller arc examining the ethics of his relationship with the endearing shell. Camp even factors into an interview with Lesley Stahl and the “60 Minutes” crew — Marcel and Nana Connie are devoted fans of the investigative show.

The movie’s Dean is also processing a recent romantic breakup. That this separation was written as part of the tale even before Camp and Slate divorced in 2016, seemed curiously prophetic to the filmmaker.

“I love how much I find in the film and in the story and in the character that feels somewhat unintentional or at least feels subconscious,” he said. “I’m an idiot because I always think that whatever I’m making is just total fiction. Then years later I’m always surprised at how personal my movies end up, and this one is no exception.”


Marcel and his Nana Connie in "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On." (Courtesy of A24)

What comes next

With Marcel now warming souls in movie theaters, Slate feels confident that this ever-deepening character has a promising, if still undecided, future.

“As long as I’m a living person there will be more to explore about Marcel because there’s a big part of him that really lives in my psyche,” she said. “He’s exactly the same as when we first met him. He’s just revealed himself more. The best thing about Marcel is that he very rarely says he doesn’t want to answer a question. That’s why we keep getting to know him.”

Slate and Camp agree that the years alongside their lovably witty artistic offspring has elucidated significant truths about themselves, all while teaching them invaluable lessons in tackling adversity.

“I find Marcel truly inspiring, especially the way that he never feels small, even if he is. He never feels overlooked. He never feels like the world is unfair. Most people can relate to feeling like they are in a world that wasn’t made for them,” said Camp. “But he doesn’t see his differences. When he runs into an obstacle, he doesn’t see impossibility. He’ll find a way around it just like yesterday and just like tomorrow.”


 Dean Fleischer-Camp & Jenny Slater



Rosa Salazar, Dean Fleisher-Camp, Jenny Slater



Cast of Marcel the Shell

Guess why I smile? Uh, because it's worth it.
- Marcel the Shell


Jenny Slate
Marcel

Guess what I do for adventure... I hang glide on a Dorito.
- Marcel the Shell

Dean Fleischer-Camp
Dean

But sometimes I tie a hair to a piece of lint and I drag it around.
His name is Alan. He doesn't know tricks or anything.
- Marcel the Shell

Isabella Rossellini
Connie

Life's a party. Rock your body."
-Marcel the Shell

Nathan Fielder
Justin

You can't make yourself a nickname,
like you can make yourself a new hairstyle.
- Marcel the Shell

Rosa Salazar
Larissa

One time I nibbled on a piece of cheese
and my cholesterol went up to 900.
- Marcel the Shell

Thomas Mann
Mark

Do you want to watch me try to lift this?

Alright... ehheh, ehh, ughh...

Nah, I can't. I can't' life anything up at all.

- Marcel the Shell

Lesley Stahl
herself

My one regret in life is that I'll never have a dog.
-Marcel the Shell

Jessi Klein
Judy


Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Official Trailer (2022) Jenny Slate, Rosa Salazar